Jim Crow laws in 21st century

5:36 PM,
Oct. 8, 2012

Written by

Leonard Pitts Jr.
Leonard Pitts Jr.

Back in the '90s, when she was just Kemba Smith, she became a poster child for the excesses and inanities of the so-called War on Drugs. Kemba Smith Pradia, then a college student, became involved with, and terrorized by, a man who choked and punched her regularly. By the impenetrable logic of battered women, she thought it was her fault.

The boyfriend was a drug dealer. Pradia never handled drugs, never used, never sold drugs. But she sometimes carried his gun in her purse. She flew to New York with drug money strapped to her body.

Eventually, she was busted. And this good girl from a good home, who ...